Using a desk-compatible recumbent bike in an office workstation

Prolonged seated posture in a sedentary office workstation is one of the major reasons that is causing the rising trend in obesity. To promote exercise in the office, this study investigates in using a desk-compatible recumbent bike in a workstation from two aspects. One is to provide workstation design guidelines that would accommodate 95% of the U.S. population. The other is to see if reading and typing can be carried out without hindrance. Twelve participants were required to select their preferred workstation settings and perform the reading and typing tasks while pedaling at three different conditions: no cycling, 10 and 25 watts. By using the anthropometric variability and the user preference from the sample, the adjustable range of the workstation settings for the general U.S. population was derived: seat height 382-455 mm, desk clearance 692-835 mm, desk depth 595-832 mm, and required minimum total distance 1243-1487 mm. Repeated measures ANOVA revealed that reading comprehension was not affected while pedaling (p > 0.05), but typing was affected at higher watts (p < 0.001).